


Time Spins In a Circle

by lal nila syrin (lalnilasyrin)



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Crack, Crack headcanon, Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1613390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalnilasyrin/pseuds/lal%20nila%20syrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The future is endless and infinite, and--as Danny would soon discover--it spun like the hands of time... round and round the clock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Spins In a Circle

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a crack headcanon post that somehow became a fic. Written for Dannyversary at some odd hour of the night.

No one knows who Clockwork is, where he comes from, what his real name is, how he died or whether he’s actually a manifestation of a concept, or… just how old he really is.

Danny found himself pondering this one day at twenty-four years old—his birthday had just passed, and he had caught a glimpse of the time ghost floating around the city. At first he thought Clockwork was here to wish him a happy birthday, but it was a few days late for that and Clockwork was never late—plus, he did send a present this year, so it wasn’t like he missed it.

As he watched Clockwork look around almost sadly, Danny couldn’t help but wonder what Clockwork was there for if not to visit him. Besides…

"Clockwork! I never see you outside of the Ghost Zone!" He called cheerfully, finally approaching close enough to talk, "What are you doing here?"

And the time ghost turned to look at him, seeming slightly confused—he looked directly at Danny and blinked before turning his gaze away, looking around quizzically. When he looked back and saw Danny still there, waiting for an answer, his face fell neutral.

Danny tilted his head, wondering why Clockwork looked so  _young_. Supposedly he had been around since the beginning of time… but what if that wasn’t the case? What if there was a brief period of time when, yes, he was alive, and yes, he died, but it wasn’t in the past as Danny knew it… but in the future? What if this Clockwork was a more recently deceased version of Clockwork?

Danny had never met a genuinely younger Clockwork before—but with all the time meddling and jumping that ghost did, Danny was a little surprised he hadn’t met him sooner.

~~~

When Danny’s friends and family and everyone he knew passed on, and the years grew long and old, Danny was soon discovering that even as a half ghost, he was still mortal. He finally died himself at an old age, and continued protecting Amity for his grandchildren’s sake, until they died and moved on too… and he went through the ages as everything he once knew changed and died away, and his descendants only knew him as a legend. He eventually retreated for the Ghost Zone, thinking maybe that was where he finally belonged—not as a half-ghost in the human world, but fully dead and still kicking over on the other side. But he was alone. He had made sure his family and friends passed peacefully… and no one had done the same for him.

He explored the Ghost Zone and occasionally the world because the world was all he had now. And he explored all of space, just like he wanted to when he was a child—and eventually time became his too.

Going through the Ghost Zone portals led him to histories. With nothing better to do, his age made him curious and he explored  _time_. He kept doing it and saw what Clockwork liked about history and even met more younger Clockworks who were also exploring time like him—it reminded him of that day, so long ago, when he was twenty-four.

A younger Clockwork was much more talkative. Much more excitable. Danny liked the younger Clockworks a lot. They told stories: stories about the age of the Chinese Empire, the Fall of Babylon, the building of the Pyramids in Egypt and the Colosseum in Rome…

Danny was careful not to let the younger Clockwork know that Clockwork would meet a younger version of Danny in the future. He knew Clockwork might have been all-seeing, but he couldn’t see his own future—just everyone else’s—because Clockwork seemed to live outside of time itself.

So, Danny thought, the younger Clockwork didn’t know how they would eventually meet and that Clockwork would become his mentor or guardian or  _friend_. But they became friends no matter their age, it seemed—Clockwork was intrigued by Danny even without knowing he was a half-ghost—or used to be, when he was alive—and sometimes, he was intrigued by Danny despite that they had supposedly never met before in Clockwork’s personal timeline.

Clockwork tagged along Danny’s travels sometimes, and once visited Amity Park with Danny when he was returning home to his “rightful” time. When Danny looked, he saw Clockwork smiling fondly but sadly like he knew this place intimately. Danny didn’t doubt the thought—even before the Ghost Portal, Amity Park was a hot spot for natural exits from the Ghost Zone. Maybe he even lived there when he was alive.

~~~

Whenever Danny went back to Amity Park, he was quickly reminded of how much time had passed and how alone he was. And in all his time exploring, he lost track of time—and then himself, so caught up in the infinite world around him. He saw the date on the newspapers, found the names on the graves of his friends and family long faded and worn with time, and was reminded of why he should stay in the Ghost Zone. He didn’t belong on the earth, not when they would know he wasn’t at peace for some reason. The real reason didn’t seem to matter anymore—he was somewhat content with his nomadic life.

He retreated to explore the Ghost Zone again, maybe to visit Frostbite since it’s been a while. Or maybe he’d see his other friends, like Wulf and Dora.

When he saw Clockwork again—whether the one from his “rightful” timeline or a younger one, he could never tell and it never did matter—Clockwork commented with amusement that Danny seemed to have picked up Clockwork’s little time jumping powers.

~~~

Danny spends the next few hundred years experimenting with his new powers under Clockwork’s mentorship. He eventually gains the other time powers too, though how well he can control them is questionable.

Toward the end of his training, Danny asks Clockwork if he taught Danny because he wanted an apprentice or something—Clockwork answers with his usual ominous, “No… but everything is as it should be.”

Danny wonders about this—because in the past, his powers had made him powerful and evil. Now much older, and with that crisis averted, he’s just been made powerful by the ghost who’s charged with making sure he can’t turn on anyone. Why?

He looked over to the old metal thermos in the display case of Clockwork’s lair, unafraid and pitiful for the creature inside. He remembered the first time Clockwork had said those words to him, and realized he never quite understood.

Maybe he’d find out someday.

~~~

One day, Clockwork declared that Danny’s training was officially over, and he didn’t have to stay at the clock tower anymore—though he was never restricted there in the first place.

As Danny prepared to leave and wander and see what had changed in history since the last time he saw it, Clockwork stopped the former half-ghost’s brief heartfelt farewell with one of his own: “This is the last time we’ll meet like this. So this is goodbye.”

Danny asked why, because he didn’t want to lose one of his only, best, constant, and wisest friends.

Clockwork gave his mysterious smile and reassured him. “Worry not, Danny, we will meet again… but not in the way you would expect. Time has a funny way of working like that.”

Danny didn’t really understand, but he trusted Clockwork, and bid him farewell for good, if it was really that. He thought that maybe this was the end of Clockwork’s personal timeline—he was so  _old_  after all. Danny would surely run into Clockwork again, right? Maybe it was Clockwork who would never see Danny again—maybe he knew, and maybe that was why he said goodbye like that.

Little did he know that ever since their first meeting—ever since Danny met the youngest Clockwork he thought he would ever meet—Clockwork had always known: he didn’t need the ability to see the future to know exactly what would happen in Danny’s.

And he watched as Danny left once more to wander the world.

~~~

Danny is thousands of years old now and time doesn’t mean much to him anymore except that he can see it everywhere, and it ticks inside of him. He’s lost track of how old he is, what he even looks like now, and how many countless times he had visited every era of the world and memorized them—lived in them.

He’s lonely in his travels. Hundreds of years pass before he remembers to go  _home_ for once. He doesn’t go there much anymore, because sometimes it’s too painful, and it makes him want to stop exploring and find a way to pass on.

But he goes, once every thousand years or so—twice if he feels like he should, for some inexplicable reason. Danny thought that maybe it was due time to find Clockwork again, maybe he could explain all these strange but urgent feelings of needing to be somewhere. Somewhere life-changing, or a moment of history being made… or needing to be saved.

Yes, Danny thinks as he steps out of the time portal and into a random era of Amity Park, he would go find Clockwork after this. Amity Park as he saw it now was green and sunny with not so many skyscrapers—just how he liked it and remembered it from so many lifetimes ago. Maybe he had subconsciously opened a portal to this time, he muses as he floats some twenty feet in the air, observing his surroundings. It looked like an early peace-era Amity Park—right after the age when people started accepting that ghosts could be good too, and after the discrimination had faded. The chances were good that this was an Amity Park that still had a Ghost Portal, he realized—maybe this was a time era he could find a younger Clockwork through that portal.

Smiling faintly to himself, he floats lazily toward the place he knows FentonWorks is, taking in his old city and reminding himself that this wasn’t home anymore… but at least it used to be.

And just as he wanders over the heart of Amity park, he hears someone shout out something that startles him—not just because of who the shout was calling for, as Danny had been looking for him too, but because of who had said it.

"Clockwork! I never see you outside of the Ghost Zone! What are you doing here?"

And when he turns to look, he sees Danny Fenton, twenty-four years old, beaming up at  _him_.


End file.
